


Sightings of A Future Commander

by Lady_Katana4544



Series: Callista Shepard [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Biotic Shepard, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Female Character of Color, First Meetings, Gen, Male Character of Color, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-05-28 08:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6322114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Katana4544/pseuds/Lady_Katana4544
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Anderson spots a future Commander while leave on Earth in Athens, Greece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since the Earthborn entry in the Codex in the Mass Effect series doesn't say where _exactly_ Shepard lives or in the underbelly of which megatropolise(s), I took a few creative licenses with this particular Shepard of mine.
> 
> Earthborn Biotic!Shepard
> 
> A slightly short chapter first as I wasn't sure just how long I had wanted it to be exactly.

It isn’t often that he comes to Earth for shore leave. He knows that there isn’t much here for him, not when he’s spent so much of his lifetime in the Alliance military.

He’s not even sure why he’s decided to spend what little leave he actually has on Earth. Or even in Athens, Greece for that matter. Something in the back of his mind whispered to him that he should come here, though. Up till this point however, he’s usually trusted that little voice in his head. At this moment? He’s not sure why he did.

He’s sitting at a table in one of the smaller cafes of the city when he spots her. A dirty, thin, dark–skinned slip of a girl standing at the entrance of one of the alleys across the street. The dark brown, short-haired girl is staring intently something. 

A young hunter on watch, then.

His eyes follow the intent line of her gaze and watches as another young hunter seems to stalk their prey successfully and is gone before their target has even noticed that he has lost something of value. In that moment, he feels eyes on him and he looks back to meet the intent gaze of the unknown girl.

Her eyes narrow at him, seeming like they are nailed into his soul and searching it before she’s slipping away back to the shadows of the alley.

This is why he doesn’t like coming back to Earth for shore leave. His visits usually leave him with the bitterly sour taste of sadness that there are children like her that the system has failed.

0

Three years later, find him returning to Athens, Greece once more. He’s not sure what the experience will leave with him this time.

Will he see that same young girl again?

He rather doubts that he will. Part of him wonders how these children even manage to survive the streets on so little to keep them going.

Loud shouts and sounds of something -- possibly glass --breaking tear him away from his thoughts and the now cold coffee in his hands. Automatically his hand reaches for the gun at his hip that he doesn’t have.

Cursing softly, he moves towards the alley and peers around the corner to see what’s going on. He’s not even sure if he’s supposed to be surprised or not. Gang fights, if he remembered from reading debriefs for the country had become commonplace, and travelers were advised to keep an eye on any possessions they might bring with them. 

Whoever these two unknown gangs are, both of them fight more violently than most gang fights that he has witnessed from a distance. He wonders if this is a fight over territory he’s witnessing or simply a gang war.

After a moment or two, the sharp flash of biotics catches his attention and he looks. 

Of course it would be the girl he had spotted three years earlier.

A young biotic.

A strong and powerful biotic who seemed to be taking down and ripping through her chosen targets with the ease of long experience of knowing her abilities, and then occasionally turning around to shout something at her companions who jumped to do whatever she said to them. 

Eventually the fighting ceases, and the girl’s team are all crowing in delighted victory while she looks on with a vicious little grin as their battered enemies slink away in defeat.

He looks away to consider the scared young woman, a bystander who gotten caught between the groups fighting and had crawled up beside him during the fighting.

“Are you alright?”

The young woman blinks at him slowly before nodding once.

Part of him wondered if she could be convinced to leave such a life like this one behind her and join the Alliance. He feels like the Alliance would likely benefit from having her among their number.

Later in reporting his discovery to Hackett, the other man looks slightly concerned and tells him to do whatever it takes to find the young biotic and get her to join the Alliance military if he can.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick little post to finish up this part of the series on the day of my sister's wedding. :D

Two months after that talk with Hackett, he uses what resources he has access to outside of the Alliance and a few contacts in the area to look for the girl, but his search seems to be in vain. The girl seems to have vanished into the winds.

Damn it.

But really he should have expected this. That someone like her wouldn’t be so easy to find right off the bat.

In the end though he probably shouldn’t have been surprised that _she_ found him out and came to him in the end.

0

He sighs as he enters the dark hotel room after another day of fruitless searching, only to stiffen when he notices the sensation of being watched and looks up as the door slowly closes to see a pair of eyes watching him from one of the higher windows.

“Word on the street is that you’ve been looking for me.”

“How -”

“I’d like to know why.” As she speaks over him, she jumps down from the ledge and lands with a muffled thump on the cushions of the sofa and pads over to him on bare silent feet. She circles him slowly. At this close distance, he notices that she has intense forest green eyes and matted dark brown hair. “Why? Why the interest? What am I to you?”

“My name is David Anderson. What’s your name, child?” He follows her with his eyes, not quite turning his head to follow her path.

“Good for you. Don’t have one. Even if I did, wouldn’t it to tell you anyways.” She snorts loudly at the question and smirks slightly.

“Everyone has a name.” To him it seems rather strange for someone to not have one.

Which is apparently the wrong thing to say, because she’s suddenly in his face. Angry. Very dangerous suddenly. Eyes glowing blue in the dark and he swears he can feel the biotic charge in the air. She’s close now that even with the dim light coming into the room through the shades, that he can see and count the number of freckles in her skin.

“Only people with folks who care do. I don’t.”

Then she’s pushing him against the wall roughly with a dark sneer in her voice. She’s close enough now that he could smell her breath.

“Tell me what you want before I break your fracking nose, old man. I’ve seen you hanging around before. Why the interest?” The girl snarls at him in a low tone.

“The Alliance could use someone with biotic skills like yours.”

She scoffs at the answer.

“Really. No one wants any of my kind in their nice shiny Alliance. Biotic or otherwise. Stains their otherwise “pristine” reputation that they have everyone believing in.” The girl says

She actually has him there. But still he has to try regardless.

“That might be true, but think about it. How much longer will you last on these streets? You could do some good for the galaxy and the Alliance with your skill level in biotics.”

At that statement, something seems to crack within the girl and she looks towards a dark corner of the room for a long time, then whatever it was that cracked in her seemed to harden before his eyes. Had he been able to reach her? Had she heard the truth in his words? Eventually she looks back at him and meets his gaze while walking backwards to one of the windows behind her.

“Perhaps I’ll consider it, David Anderson. You should stop looking for me though, it’s rather bad for business ventures.”

He opens his mouth to answer her, but the girl is already out the window and gone by the time he reaches the window to look outside.

0

Five years pass since that meeting and while Anderson does think of the girl, he doesn’t keep looking for her. Though he does put out the occasional feelers looking for information, but they don’t find much as he suspects that they won’t.

Some days there is the occasional report of a young woman who matches the description of the young girl through the years. And still running through the criminal underworld.

He doesn’t know if he’s surprised or upset by that. That the girl had decided to not take his offer and remain where she was. Hopefully one of the most powerful Biotics of Earth wouldn’t have chosen to remain in the darkest shadows of the planet.

A knock at the door of his office brings his attention away from his own disappointment at himself for not trying harder to reach the girl and focuses on the sound as he looks toward the door.

“Enter.”

A harried looking officer enters his office with a young woman in uniform fatigues -- possibly a new recruit? She had the look of being someone who was experienced in battle -- following behind. His eyes glance at the dark skinned young woman and his mind notes that there seems to be something familiar about her. She smirks at him when she notices his staring and he turns his attention to the other officer.

“Yes? What is it?”

The young officer takes a deep breath before gesturing at the young woman behind them.

“Apologies sir. But one of our latest recruits to the Alliance wished to see it. She -” Here the young officer looks intrigued while the tension lines of his body say that he’s slightly uncomfortable with the situation. “She said that she met you once and wished to thank you I think for speaking to her?”

The woman snorts softly and has a shark’s grin aimed at the young officer when he glances over his shoulder with a pale face. There’s a part of Anderson that wonders why the other officer’s behavior as he glances the woman again and tilts his head slightly, looking at the woman. She’s quick to notice him looking at her again and meets his gaze.

The other officer clears his throat clears his throat breaking the staring stalemate. Anderson looks over at him and nods slightly as the woman starts to walk around his office.

“Thank you for bringing her to me, Officer Hangley. Dismissed.”

“Sir.”

The officer salutes before turning around and all but running out the door, he hears the woman snicker softly before he turns to her. He finds that she has half turned to watch him with a watchful gaze.

He opens his mouth to say something, though she beats him to the first word.

“So this is where you are located, David Anderson.” She says in a calm lilty voice and he frowns at her. There’s something familiar about the voice.

“I apologize have you and I met before today?” He asks, wondering where they could have met before today.

The upper corner of her lips quirked upward slightly and she chuckles softly.

“Interesting no? You do not seem to remember the young biotic you found in Greece and were so adamant that the little girl should have a name like your parents gave you.” she says in response, a thin line of blue energy briefly appears along the hard lines of her body before disappearing. Anderson freezes as a memory of watching a young female biotic fight a gang as a blur of energy with gang members of her own.

A memory of a girl in the shadows with forest green eyes who had come to find him in a dark room after hearing that someone was looking for her. Then disappeared into the winds and he had thought that he hadn’t been able to get through.

“You.”

“Yes me.” She nods once.

“I tried looking for you.” He had been concerned about her, even though the girl had proven that she had known how to survive those hard streets.

“I know. But when you have the right contacts… well it makes rather easy to disappear into the depths of the underworld.”

“Indeed so,” Anderson nods in agreement. There had been parts of him that had equally disappointed and equally impressed that she had been able to elude even the best of his contacts for so long. “So why show yourself to me now?”

The woman slowly shrugs both shoulders. “You were interesting. Not everyone decides to go looking for nameless street kids even if they are Biotics.”

Anderson leans back against his desk and makes a gesture towards her. “Nameless or not every Biotic is useful to the Alliance if they choose to use their power wisely.” Here he grins slightly as he asks a question. “But have you chosen a name or are you still nameless?”

“No longer nameless. Though I’ve heard that only people who are friends get the right to know a person’s name.” She tilts her head and taps her chin thoughtfully. “Though I suppose you have earned the right to know it. The name is Shepard. Callista Shepard.”

Anderson nods with a small. “Good to meet you, Shepard. Do you have an assignment already or do you have some time? I’d like to get to know you a little better.”

“Supposed to join a team that’s getting ready to head out to Akuze, sir. But I have some time and a few days free before I need to report to them.” Shepard answers, watching him with dark hooded eyes.

 

 

Epilogue: 

(a few months later)

How?

How had the Alliance managed to lose so many marines on Akuze in an incident where perhaps more than one should have survived the attack? Who had dropped the ball on getting the intel to someone about the possibility of giant sharp toothed worms being in that precise area?

From the sound of the report that he had heard from Hackett, it sounded like Shepard had been very lucky to survive the attack on her team by the beasts.

He stands staring at a medbay room door as soldiers and medical professionals moved around him.

“Captain Anderson?”

Anderson turns to look at the young male nurse now standing at his elbow. A quick look down at the nametag on his chest said that his name was “Juneau”.

“How’s Shepard?” Anderson asks and the younger man glances toward the door then looks back at him.

“Physically, Shepard is fine with just some small scrapes and bruises. There was a cut along her cheek that only required a few stitches.”

“And mentally?”

Juneau shrugs one shoulder as he glances down at the datapad in his hands. “Given what little she has shared about her background and the rough nature of her mission to Akuze, it’s rather hard to say. Given how hard the fighting with security was earlier, Shepard may come out of it just. Or this mission could be the thing that breaks her down. Either way our doctors agree that Shepard should stay the night observation.”

“Understood.” Anderson answers before glancing at the door again. “Is Shepard allowed visitors?”

“Yes, sir. You may go in and see her.” The nurse nods twice, his eyes softening his concerned expression. 

“Thank you.”

The other man leaves him alone with a smile and nod, Anderson takes a deep breath in and then breathes out before opening the door. He doesn’t know what he should be expecting to find inside the room. He sees Shepard sitting on the edge of the windowsill with one leg pulled up against her chest, watching the slow setting of the sun before turning her head to look at him as Anderson came into the room. He stops by the bed and looks her over, he can see the stitched cut along her cheek and a healing burn that made a straight horizon the side of her neck. He can see a dark bruise on her chin and on both of her hands.

“Shepard. How are you?” He asks as he stops at a set of chairs in the room, careful to not appear as though he’s trying keep Shepard in a tight corner. 

“I’m alright. Can’t say the same for my team.” Shepard turns her head to cough into her elbow before turning back to look at him. “The docs want to keep me here for observation.”

For a few moments, silence falls between them and Shepard examines her nails before looking at him.

“It won’t get any easier from here to lose more people. The streets of the underworld are one thing, but this is a different sort of thing altogether. How do you tell the families that you’re sorry for not bringing anyone back with you?” Shepard asks softly, a guarded look settling in her gaze as she watches him. 

“No, it won’t get any easier. But you can always find ways to lessen the number of lost lives on a mission.” Anderson answers with a slight shake of his head. “As for telling the families, there’s no easy to express your apologies in these sort of things.”

“Hm.” Shepard hums softly before turning her head away to watch as the remaining light of the sun fades away.


End file.
